Twitter Wants to End Up the “Likes”

5 months ago

A few years ago, Twitter abandoned one of the elements present in its options. Users could no longer give a Star of Favorites to a tweet posted on the social network, but they had to start giving a heart.

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Share Give it a Spin!

A few years ago, Twitter abandoned one of the elements present in its options. Users could no longer give a Star of Favorites to a tweet posted on the social network, but they had to start giving a heart. Twitter changed the favorites by the likes in a way to achieve more engagement. Then, the company explained that it wanted to make Twitter more intuitive for new users of the platform. The social network pointed out that the heart transmitted more emotions. From the outside, the new symbol seemed like a lesson learned from the Facebook book.

Of course, for Twitter users, the change was almost like a betrayal. “Likes” are not exactly the same as the favorite and the users had to change how and when they used it.

Now, years later and when you may have already forgotten how much the change angered you, Twitter is going to change things again. As it has leaked to the media, Twitter plans to eliminate the heart of the likes and leave the reactions in simply retweets.

The news has been advanced by The Telegraph, based on statements made by the CEO and founder of the social network, Jack Dorsey, at an event. Dorsey said he was not a fan of the option and that Twitter was going to get rid of her “soon.” Twitter will eliminate the “likes” because with this it thinks that it will improve the quality of the debate and the conversations in the social network.

Why they want to kill “likes”

The change would be framed, as they recall in the British media, in the entire clean-up process in which Twitter has sunk in recent times. Twitter wants to reduce the impact of the echo cameras and also the power of the trolls and their effect on the conversations. Eliminating the likes would be a way – or so it seems they think – of empowering other less problematic conversation formats.

In fact, the only comment that Twitter has made about the news has been from its communication account, retweeting with comment the Telegraph article. “As we have been saying for some time, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure that we are encouraging healthy conversations, that includes the I like button”, they published. “We are in the early stages of work and we have no plans to share right now,” they added.

The impact of the measure

Remove the like will make a part of the activity of the social network disappear, look where you look. Right now, I like it is a kind of quick response and a slightly less committed than giving a retuit. I like it is from a ‘I received your message’ to a ‘what you’re saying I like’.

Giving me a favor is also much less complicated than retweeting a content: the entry barrier for it is much lower. For that reason, it is possibly easier to give a liking to a content of a brand, a company or an influencer than to retweet what they have published.

The change in Twitter will therefore have an impact on what we do in the social network, but also in what we receive in it, especially if it is a corporate account. Do companies, brands and influencers have part of their scope and their activity threatened?

In addition, the impact of the measure can go far beyond what happens on Twitter and can reach other social networks. What would happen if other social networks decided to follow their example to promote ‘better’ conversations? It seems unlikely at the outset that Facebook or Instagram ends with their likes, but in that hypothetical case would become a very important burden for brands, companies and, above all, the activity of influencers, who live and publish for the likes